Local News

The National D-Day Memorial welcomed 15 members of L’Association Omaha Beach-Bedford, Friday.

Bedford is a special place for members of this French organization. It’s based in the towns around the beach named Omaha for the D-Day landing. Bertrand LeJemtel, the association’s president, remembers that day. He was only 5 years old on June 6, 1944, but he still remembers it vividly. The area in the vicinity of his home was bombed and shelled for three days and, to this day, he can still remember the smell of the explosives.

Last week Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello testified to the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources in support of his legislation, H.R. 2689, which would begin the process for bringing the National D-Day Memorial under the purview of the National Park Service.

Additionally, Dr. William McIntosh, president and CEO of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation, testified.

Someone in Cris Tyler’s neighborhood finally decided to take matters into his own hands last week. After several months of not having a street sign, a homemade sign marking the intersection of Laurel and Peaks streets went up.

“It’s a problem and it seems like a simple fix,” Tyler said while sitting at his porch last week at the corner of the intersection.

Bedford Memorial Hospital marked a major achievement Thursday, celebrating its accreditation as a chest pain center by the Society of Chest Pain Centers.

Bedford’s hospital is the first rural hospital in Central Virginia and one of only four rural hospitals in the Commonwealth to receive this accreditation. There are a total 14 accredited chest pain centers in Virginia. There are 505 worldwide.

William H. “Will” Smith, of Buchanan, has an unusual background for a person seeking elective office. Back in 1997 he pleaded no contest to two felony charges of procuring prostitution.

According to a Roanoke Times article from April 19, 1997, Roanoke City Police were investigating a business called Shooters 44, which they believed was a front for prostitution. A pair of undercover police officers checked the place out. The business advertised lingerie modeling sessions and they watched one.

They’re not quite the locusts of Pharaoh’s day. Nor do they (yet) qualify as a plague.

Nonetheless, stink bugs seem to be on their way to those levels. All corners of the county are reporting a greater presence of the little stinkers, and folks want to know why and what they can do about it.

The Bedford County Board of Supervisors approved a primitive campground off Stone Mountain Road by a 6-1 vote Monday night, following a public hearing on the request.

The planning commission, last month, voted 4-1 in favor of a proposal by Linda Frisbee to establish a primitive campground, to be called Camp Karma, on her property. The vote came after a public hearing in which a majority of the speakers, many of them apparently angry, spoke against it.